Editorial: Sunshine Week

Mar. 12, 2006

Written by

THE JOURNAL NEWS

THE JOURNAL NEWS

A depressingly dark, local cloud shadows the first day of Sunshine Week, an opportunity that we and other news media take to preach the importance of the public's right to know — and, we would hope, congratulate local government agencies on their understanding of that importance.

Last year, when Journal News staffers went in search of records that the law requires be open to the public, they met with mixed results. Some offices were knowledgable of the state Freedom of Information Law requirements and responded promptly; others were sluggish; some failed the test altogether.

The worst performers, overall, were local police departments. That's where staffers concentrated to see if lessons were learned. Today's gloomy front-page story reports that the results were, again, dismal.

There was some talk after last year's report of the Westchester County Police Chiefs Association providing more guidance on freedom-of-information requirements. If anything was done, it obviously wasn't enough. We trust there will be a stronger response now, from both the association and individual chiefs.

The reaction from state legislators — our Westchester, Rockland and Putnam representatives, in particular — was more heartening last year. Many of them got behind improvements to FOIL and the Open Meetings Law that have been recommended by the state's in-house watchdog, the Committee on Open Government. We were proud that our delegation led the way, scoring a notable success with legislation sponsored by Sen. Nicholas Spano, R-Yonkers, that requires agencies to respond to a citizen's records request under stepped-up time limits.

Other bills sputtered, though, dying in committee or passed by only one house of the Legislature.

It's time for another push.

In a Community View column on this page, Robert Freeman, the Committee on Open Government's executive director, calls attention to two Assembly bills that would combat governmental violation of the law by encouraging more court challenges to their reluctance to part with public information. The legislation would award legal fees to people whose lawsuits establish that agencies violated FOIL or the Open Meetings Law. Legal expenses are now very difficult to recover. The open meetings bill is sponsored by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale.

We urge Spano, Paulin and the rest of the delegation to renew their efforts, as well, on behalf of the reforms left undone last year. Among them are bills that

• Call on agencies to deliver documents by e-mail when possible and requested in that form;

• Limit what same-party members of a government board can discuss in closed political caucus meetings to party, not public, business;

• Make public any finding or admission of misconduct involving a police officer, now disclosed only with an officer's permission;

• Require public bodies to make available 72 hours before a meeting proposed laws and some other agenda items;

• Extend to the Legislature itself the disclosure standards that the Freedom of Information Law now sets for other government agencies. Legislators can play by more lenient rules, permitting them to hide such pertinent information as staff expenses.

We hope our periodic updates on these issues will be liberally sprinkled with applause for more successes.